The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-10-10

/ others frank, honest earnest, Christian
/ life, that they may be attracted to the same
Saviour upon whom your hopes depend.
! Remember skepticism always has some
reason, good or bad, for existing. Goethe's
! irreligion started when the news came to
| Germany of the earthquake at Lisbon, Nov.
| |, l115. That 600O0 people should have
| perished in that earthquake and in the after
rising of the Iagus river SO stirred his SYM
pathieS that he threw up his belief in the
goodness of God.
Others have gone into skepticism from a
natural persistence in asking the reason
| why. They have been fearfully stabbed of
the Interrogation point. There are so many
things they cannot get explained. They
cannot understand the Trinity OF how God
can be sovereign and yet man free
agent Neither can l. They say;
81 don't understand why a good God
should have let sin come into the world"
| Neither do l. You say: "Why was that
child started in life with such disad vantages
while Others have all physical and mental
! equipmentM | cannot tell They go out
OF church on Easter morning and say
| "rhat doctrine of the resurrection con
founded me-" So it is to me a mystery be-
yond unravelment. | understand all the
processes by which men get into the dark. l
| know them all ] have Travelled with burn
ing feet that blistered way The first word
! that children learn to utter is generally
| papa or mamma. ! think the first word
uttered was "WhyH know what it is to
have hundred midnightS pour their dark
ness into one hour. Such men are not to be
scofTed but helped. Turn your back upon a
| drowning man when YOU have the rope
with which to pull him ashore, and let that
woman i'll the third story of house perish
in the flames when you have ladder with
which to help her out and help her
down, rather than turn your back
| scoffingly on a skeptic whose soul
is in more peril than the bodies
of those other endangered ones possibly can
be. Oh, skepticsm is a dark land There
are men in this house who would give n
thousand worlds, if they possessed them, to
get back to the placid faith of their fathers
| and mothers, and it is our place to help
| them, and we may help them, never through
their heads, but always through their
hearts. These slieptics when brought to
Jesus, will he nightly affected, far more so
than those who never examined the evil
dences of Christianity. Thomas Chalmers
was once a skeptic, Robert Hall skeptic
Robert Newton skeptic, Christmas Evans
a skeptic. But when once with strong hand
| they took hold of the chariot of the Gospel
they rolled it on with what momentum! If
| address such men and women to-day, |
throw out no scofr. ! impead them by the
| memory of the good old days, when at their
mothers knee they said: "Now | lay me
down to Sleep" and by those days and
nights of scarlet fever in which she watched
| you, giving you the medicine at just the
| right time and turning your pillow when
| it was hot, and with hands that many years
ago turned to dust, soothed away your pain,
| and with voice that you will never hear
again, unless you join her in the better
| country told you to never mind for you
would feel better by-and-by, and by that
| diving couch where she looked so pale and
talked so slowly catching her breath be
tween the words, and you felt an awful
| loneliness coming over your soul; by all
that, beg you to come back and take the
same religion. 1t was good enough for her
1t is good enough for you. Nay, | have a
better plea than that. plead by all the
wounds, and tears. and blood, and groans,
| and agOnies, and death-throes of the Son of
| God, who approaches you this moment with
torn brow and lacerated hand, and whipped
back, and saying: Come unto me- all ye
who are weary and heavy laden, and | will
give you reStn
Again, there is a field of usefulness but
little touched occupied by those who are
aStray in their habits. All northern ma
tions, like those of North America. and
England and Scotland, that is, in the colder
| climates, are devastated by alcoholism.
They take the fire to keep up the warmth.
| In Southern countries, like Arabia and
Spain, the blood is so they are not tempted
to fiery liquids. The great Roman armies
never drank anything stronger than water
| tnged with vinegar, but under our
Northern climate the temptation to heating
| stimulants is most mighty, and millions
succumb. When a mans habits go wrong
the church drops him, the social circle drops
| him, good influences drop him, we all drop
him OF all the men who get off track
| but few ever get on again Near my sum
! mer residence there is a life-SaVing station
on the beach. There are all the ropes and
rockets, the boats, the machinery for
! getting people off shipwrecks. Summer
! before last l saw there fifteen or twenty
men who were breakfasting, after having
| Just escaped with their lives and nothing
more Up and down our coasts are built
! these useful structures, and the mariners
! know il, and they feel that II they are
| driven into the breakers there will be apt
| from shore to come "a rescue. The churches
| of God ought to be so many life-saving
! stations, not so much to help those who are
| in smooth waters but those who have been
! shipwrecked Come, let US run out the life
| boats! And who will man them! We do not
| preach enough to such men, we have not
| enough faith in their release. Alas, if when
they come to hear us, we are laboriously
| trying to show the difference between sub
while they have a thousand vipers
of remorse and despair coiliDg
around and biting their immortal spirits.
| The church is not chiefly for goodish sort of
men whose proclivities are all right, and
who could get to heaven praying and sing
| ing IN their own homes 1t is on the beach
to help the drowning. Those bad cases are
the cases that God likes to take hold of. He
can save a big sinner as well as a small sin
| ner, and when a man calls earnestly TO God
for help he will go out to deliver such a one.
| II it were necessary God would come down
from the sky, followed by all the artillery
of heaven and a million angels with
drawn swords Get one hundred such re-
| deemed men III each Of your churches, and
nothing could stand before them, for such
men are generally warmhearted and en-
thusiastic. No formal prayers then. No
heartless singing then. No cold conven-
tionalisms then.
Furthermore the destitute children of the
street offer a field of work comparatively
,moccupied. The uncared-for children are
IN the majority in Brooklyn and most of our
cities. When they grow up, if unreforined,
they will outvote your children, and they
will govern your children. The whisky
ring will hatch out other whisky rings, and
grog shops will kill with their horrid stencil
pubic sobrety, unless the Church of God
rises up with outstrctched arms and enfolds
this dying population in her bosom. Public
schools cannot do it. Art galleries cannot
do it, Blackwells Island cannot do it,
IN